Cyber crime How companies are hit by email scams

Fraudsters are using clever impersonation techniques to siphon millions from unprotected businesses
When Keith McMurtry, corporate controller of Scoular, a 124-year-old US grain-trading and storage company, was asked by his chief executive to wire $17.2m to an offshore bank account, he did not question it.
Chuck Elsea told Mr McMurtry in a top-secret email that Scoular was in talks to acquire a Chinese company. The chief executive instructed him to liaise with a lawyer at KPMG who would provide the wiring instructions to an account in China.
“We need the company to be funded properly and to show sufficient strength toward the Chinese. Keith, I will not forget your professionalism in this deal, and I will show you my appreciation very shortly,” Mr Elsea wrote in an email in June 2014. Over three transactions, Mr McMurtry transferred the $17.2m to an account in the name of Dadi Co at Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, according to an affidavit signed by an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and filed in a Nebraska court.